Author Archives: authorbengarrido
Kurt Godel and the Limits of AI
About two months ago I had the distinct pleasure to read Self Aware Patterns’ fascinating article on artificial intelligence. Mike Smith, author of that excellent blog, argued that AI need not fail because of Kurt Godel’s incompleteness theorem. He approached this problem from an empirical and deterministic theoretical framework. This inspired Tina Forsee, the writer […]
Ghost Town Exploration
With all the casinos defining Reno’s skyline, and the gambling halls studding the main drag of almost any small town in Nevada, it’s easy to forget how our state began—mines. More specifically, Nevada began as a source of financing for the Union during the Civil War. Like Liberia with its conflict diamonds, our silver helped […]
A Letter to My Students
Dear Students, Welcome back to Mokwon University. I hope you had a wonderful vacation and I hope you’re rested for the new semester but what I really hope is that you take the opportunity to do something cool in 2016. It’s true that cool stuff is more fun but that’s not my biggest reason […]
The Doomed Moralists, Part Two
In Part One of the Doomed Moralists, I argued that a moral practice becomes good because it makes a society more powerful. I don’t want to restate too much, but I took the view that good and bad are constantly evolving concepts that are always tested in the crucible of competition. Fellow writer Malcolm Greenhill […]
The Doomed Moralists
I recently had the opportunity to sample The Partially Examined Life’s Robert Nozick episode and IQsquared’s Karl Marx discussion. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less and less amenable to both Nozick’s libertarianism and Marx’s, well, Marxism. It might just be early onset curmudgeon, perhaps blind prejudice but I’m going to at least try to […]
Harems
Dear Readers, I’m writing the next novel and it’s going to be heavy on issues of femininity and masculinity. I’m interested in how masculinity changes shape with each step up the social ladder, particularly the idea that one of the most woman-friendly things a king or powerful man can do is doink everything that moves […]
Explaining Donald Trump
I had initially dismissed Donald Trump as the random crazy person that Republicans rapidly fall in love with and then out of love with during some stage of every election cycle. Pat Robertson, Sarah Palin and Rick Perry, please step up to the podium, in other words. This still might be true, but I now […]
Rocinante Gets Sharper Teeth
Crappy econo-box racecars, versions 1.0 and 2.0 The great and legendary Rocinante, my 2002 Hyundai Avante (Elantra), spent an entirely unacceptable 12 months in stock configuration. How I bowed my head in disgrace as beloved ancestors sneered at my pathetically stock ride. “Bah,” my mother said. “These springs sag like your spirit. Your Rocinante rocks […]
Devil’s Advocate Exercises
How good are you at playing Devil’s Advocate? I believe that the hardest part of being a good Devil’s Advocate is overcoming your own moral beliefs and prejudices. As such, I’ve created a list of positions you are very unlikely to accept, but which have all been accepted at one time or another. In other […]
Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham and the Limits of Logic in Persuasion
On February 4th, 2014, respected scientist, inventor and TV presenter Bill Nye debated religious museum operator Ken Ham. Mr. Nye was arguing that the biological theory of evolution is real. He had thousands of pages of data on fossils, genetics and the weight of virtually all of the scientific community. Mr. Ham was arguing that […]
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